It was only a charm bracelet with several miniature objects, like a wand, a snitch, and a broom, but the moment she unwrapped the box, and opened it, she put it on immediately, declared her love for it passionately, and gave me a giant hug.

The rest of the party went by in a blur. We ate cake, we drank way too much, we sang an off key 'Happy Birthday' to Lily. Molly (II) fell asleep in her fathers arms whilst he told her about the dangers of wearing socks to the beach or something of the sort.

That man does not know when to stop.

Roxy accidentally snapped her brothers new Nimbus 3001 in half whilst trying to ride it, and Freddie chased her round the whole of the Burrow until she hid behind a random goat that had somehow appeared in the living room, and Freddie had to retreat rapidly, since he's as scared of goats as his uncle Ron is scared of spiders. After eating 11 pieces of the giant cake that Molly (I) had made, Hugo promptly puked all over Dom, who shrieked at him and burst into tears. Victoire helped her clean up, and after their 2 second-long sweet sisterly hug, they started arguing again.

It's a complicated relationship, what they have.

While all of this went on, I sat on a chair, quietly eating my piece(s) of cake, and observing the Wotter madness.

At one point, Albus, the only mildly sensible person in his family approached me.

"Enjoying the cake?" He asked me, taking a seat beside me.

"Mhhmm." I muttered, studying him closely.

Albus had grown up quite a bit since the last time I'd seen him. He'd cut his hair, and looked more like his dad than ever.

"I hope your not following Hugo's footsteps." He teased.

I couldn't help but smile.

Poor Albus, he's a great guy, he just has an insane family.

"No thanks." I said. "I think Dom has had enough of a look and a feel of another person's internal fluids for one night."

Albus laughed with me, and we continued to chat animatedly for Merlin knows how long. Albus talked and I listened and ate more cake.

It was so delicious, it's like I couldn't stop. It was all creamy on top, with a slight taste of raspberry, and chocolate in the centre.

Soooo good!

You really cannot blame me for eating 7 pieces, having two drinks of Firewhisky, puking all over Al's shoes and then falling asleep on his lap.

I regret nothing.

-*-

Darkness.

Silence.

End of deep mysterious part of the story.

My eyelids lazily slid open, and I groaned as the bright light that filled the room I was in hurt my eyes. Stretching slowly, I sat up and realised I was in my own bedroom.

Thank Merlin.

Of course, (as it is in my life) my relief was short-lived, when I realised what time it was.

"Crap." I muttered, jumping out of my bed.

Well, it was more like trying to jump out of my bed. A failed try since I landed on the edge of it, then awkwardly tried to roll out (with all the sheets tangled around my body), and I promptly landed on the many pairs of shoes which I had been too lazy to put back into my wardrobe and so, because of that, they were now digging into my back. And I still hadn't reached the floor.

You know it's a bad day when you jump out of bed and miss the floor.

"Ouch..." I said slowly, getting up, and tripping.

Well, at least now I'd finally touched the floor.

"Urgh!"

Incredibly slowly, I got up on all fours, just when Teddy came into my room.

"Em? What are you doing on the floor?" He asked, looking amused, yet confused.

"Long story." I muttered, getting up. A terrible pain invaded my head, and I brought my hands to my head and groaned again.

Teddy stood there the whole time, stupidly smirking smugly, not trying to help at all.

"Someone have too much to drink last night?" He teased.

"No." I grumbled. "I only had two glasses of Firewhisky." I told him quietly. My head was pounding and everything was too loud.

"Well you seem to have a pretty big hungover." He commented cheerfully. I glared at him.

Great, now I get stupidly drunk with just two stupid glasses of stupid Firewhisky. Stupid.

And why is Teddy so happy anyway? He had way more to drink than I did, and was, in consequence seriously drunk. The last thing I remember about him is that he was singing 'Odo the Hero' along with George, Charlie, and Arthur Weasley.

"Why aren't you in pain? You should be in pain!" I told him, sounding like a mad woman. Then realisation hit me. "Sober-up potion! Gimme!" I begged.

I guess my brain worked a little slowly in the mornings. When I had a hungover. And had hit my head on a pair of sandals.

Okay I'm a total screw-up.

After begging and threatening Teddy several times, he finally let me have some Sober-up potion, which worked its effect on me immediately, and I felt good as new right away.

I dressed rapidly and the two of us went downstairs. As a treat because it was my first day at Hogwarts, Teddy cooked me breakfast.

He was actually surprisingly good at cooking. Someone had to be, since neither Vic nor I could cook to save our lives.

I also had fun watching him actually cooking. He made the ingredients appear on the table, (transporting them from the cabinets, to there), and effortlessly ordered the knifes to start cutting the food whilst he fried eggs and bacon.

It was like watching the part in the Beauty and the Beast when all the tableware comes to life.

"This is so good!" I told him as I tasted the crispy bacon, eggs, and beans that he'd cooked for me.

"Nothing less for my little Em." He grinned, obviously feeling smug and satisfied at my approval for his food.

"So," I started saying after drinking a big gulp of orange juice. "What time does the Hogwarts Express leave at?" I asked.

Teddy snuck a glance at the clock that was on the wall behind me. "11 O'clock." He told me calmly.

"And what time is it now?" I asked, nibbling the toast that Teddy had also made me.

"10:55." He replied, as calm as the last time.

We both sat there, without moving.

"Teddy?" I called him.

"Yes?"

"We should probably get going now." I said slowly.

"Yes."

With that, panic filled us both, and we were quickly running up and down the house. I was searching for my trunk, and Teddy was searching for his lost sock.

"HURRY UP!" I yelled in the direction of his room, as I lugged my trunk down the stairs. It was incredibly heavy, and it was hard to believe that it only belonged to one person.

After much huffing and puffing, I finally managed to get down and out the door without injuring myself. "TEDDY!" I roared, making a few, cute little birds that had been innocently eating on pieces of bread that an old lady had been feeding them fly away, and having the old lady frown at me severely, and mutter "these wretched kids," before she walked away.

Why couldn't we live in a completely wizarding community? Why does Godric's Hollow have to be partially filled with old, wrinkly ladies, and a ton of muggles that think I'm a weirdo? Why?!

"I'm fucking coming!" He shouted back. Two minutes later he appeared; his hair a mess, and had turned a light ginger colour, his clothes had been noticeably put on in a rush (since he hadn't been as smart as me, and had made breakfast in his PJ's), and he had one bright yellow sock with white polka-dots on his left foot, and a deep purple one with pink bears on his right.

Normally, I would have laughed, but we were so late, I just glared at him, feeling a grumpy mood settle on me. We both slammed the car doors, and rushed to the station.

-*-

We were predictably late, and I would have missed the train, IF Teddy wasn't THE Harry frickin' Potter's godson. It came in handy sometimes.

"Come on Em, I got them to wait a little, but the train will have to leave in just two minutes." Harry told me. I thanked him quickly, hugged him, and many of the people around him. I can't remember who they were, since I was so worried I wouldn't get on the train on time, that I barely glanced at their faces. I fervently hoped that Victoire had been one of the people I'd said goodbye to in a rush though.

The second I stepped in the narrow aisle of the red train, it came to life, and I stumbled over, and you know, being the graceful, elegant girl I am, promptly fell on my face.

Muttering to myself, I got up and started walking towards a compartment that would be free.

My luck got me ending up squished between two sweaty, fat kids in a compartment full of strangers that talked loudly and laughed at anything.

Lovely.

"Err, I'm just gonna go get sweets from the trolley." I said as I made my way to the compartment's door. I treaded on various feet, but finally managed to get away.

Well, I thought I'd managed to get away until one of the kids, with black greasy hair, and a round face stuck his beefy leg out, and tripped me up.

What? My eyes opened widely, and I looked up to see what had happened. And my blue eyes were instantly met by a pair of gorgeous grey ones.

Hello, Handsome!

The Handsome Stranger that had grabbed me by the arm and stopped my impact pulled me upwards and smiled.

And that's all it took for my knees to go weak, and to cause me to nearly fall again, thank Merlin Mr. Gorgeous Grey Eyes still had a hold on me, and stopped me from falling again.

I'm pathetic. I really am.

"Hey, are you alright?" He asked, a look of concern on his face.

"Yeah." I let out a strangled answer. He smiled again (oh dear Lord!), but then turned to glare at the kid that had tripped me up.

"Hey Scorp! Wanna sit here with us?" The kid asked, munching on his numerous chocolate frogs, and totally oblivious to the visible anger radiating from 'Scorp'.

I actually preferred Handsome Stranger, or Mr. Gorgeous Grey Eyes.

"No Goyle, what I want is for you to apologise to her." He said, pointing at me. I instantly blushed. Aww! He was sticking up for me.

Loud, obnoxious laughter quickly erupted form everyone in the compartment.

"C'mon Malfoy, you can't be serious!" Goyle said, chuckling.

Blonde Beauty (I'm good with nicknames, what can I say?) looked dead serious, and his gaze quietened the laughter down.

"Now." He commanded.

Goyle looked at his friends faces and reluctantly turned to me.

"Sorry." He muttered so quietly that I had to strain to hear.

My saviour finally looked satisfied. "Good. Now pass me her trunk." He said. I looked at him curiously. What was he doing?

Another guy, that was actually trembling because of the looks that Scorp had been giving his group, passed him my trunk carefully.

It was quite impressive how Malfoy (how many names does he have?!) looked totally unfazed with carrying my heavy trunk. I mean, I'd packed it, I knew how much it weighed.

Without another word, we stepped out of the horrid compartment, and started walking down the stretch hallway.

"I'm Scorpius Malfoy, by the way." He said, as we walked.

"Emma Jones." I told him. And I was greatly surprised at myself for being able to speak so normally with him. I mean, I cannot speak with good-looking guys! I just don't have it in me! But here I was, making conversation with the fittest boy I'd ever seen.

"Sorry about those gits back there." He said to me, still pulling my trunk along behind him.

"You know them." It was more of a statement than question, but Scorpius answered anyway.

"Unfortunately." He nodded. "They're a laugh sometimes, and we're in the same House, so it just kinda comes together." He told me. I nodded. He didn't have to apologise or make excuses for who his friends were. It didn't have to do with me. "So you're new here?" He asked me, making conversation.

"Is it really that obvious"?

Scorpius grinned. "A little." He replied chuckling.

I grinned back at him. "I transferred from Beauxbatons." I told him, and began talk about nothing in particular until Scorpius opened a seemingly random door of a compartment, where Albus Potter himself sat at.

As in the Albus Potter I barfed all over last night.

Oh boy.

-*-

Well, this is awkward.

"Hey Al." Scorpius said, not sensing the feeling of dread that was settling on me. Then both boys did that weird handshake thing that guys always do. You know, the one that says "hey bro, are you cool? I'm cool" - kinda thing. I stood by the door, estimating my possibilities of escaping, without the boys noticing.

The probabilities weren't looking good.

Especially when Scorpius turned to me, and started to introduce me to the guy I'd already known for four years. "Al, this is E-"

"Emma Jones." Albus cut him off nodding.

Confusion settled on Scorpius's perfect features, and he looked from his friend to me. "You guys already know each other?" He asked.

"Have done for a while." I said at the same time Albus replied too.

"We're pretty close." He said smirking. Scorp looked even more confused now, and was looking directly at me, as I glared at Albus.

I knew exactly what he was on about of course, he was on about the vomit, or rather my vomit on him. But it sounded different to Scorpius, who didn't know about my puking-after-only-two-glasses-of-Firewhisky disorder, especially since Al was still smirking like an idiot.

"Are you guys going out?" Scorpius asked finally.

"No!" I exclaimed, as Albus chuckled. And, maybe I imagined it, but I swear Scorpius looked a little bit relieved. "I've known Albus for ages, he's my best friend. An extremely annoying best friend." I added, glaring at him still. Albus flashed me his 100-kilowatt-smile, " I love you too Em." He said winking.

Rolling my eyes, and taking a seat next to him, I punched him on the arm lightly, and he feigned pain, and rolled down on his seat, clutching his arm. I rolled my eyes again, and looked at Scorpius, who'd been standing in the middle of the compartment, staring at the odd exchange between Al and I while it took place. I tapped the seat next to me.

"Sit?" I asked.

He immediately flashed another to-die-for smile, and did just that.

Yeah I am awesome at controlling awkward situations, I find myself in one at least everyday.

-*-

Okay. I am an honest person. I can admit things when I see that they are true. I can admit my mistakes.

Hogwarts is awesome.

I mean, seriously! The castle is huge! The towers go up endlessly. The Quidditch pitch is able to be seen through the large windows of the train. And so is the Forbidden Forest, dark and mysterious and just screaming "come inside me, I'm forbidden!"

And okay, so Scotland is cold. And rainy. And grey. And no way near as nice as France. But, c'mon! Hogwarts totally pays off for the crappy weather.

I jumped off the train, filled with enthusiasm, as Albus and Scorpius both lumbered their trunks aswell as mine (hey, they offered! I couldn't possibly refuse,) behind me.

I spotted the carriages right away, and immediately hurried towards them.

"Em! Em wait!" Albus shouted behind me, and once he and Scorpius finally reached me, he allowed himself to sigh in relief. "D'you have any idea how heavy that thing is?!" He said, pointing to my trunk as if it were some kind of man-eating-monster.

"A little?!" Albus exclaimed unbelievably. "Are you kidding? It must weigh at least-." He was in the process of starting a rant when Scorpius cut him off.

"Al, just tell her, and get to the point." He said. I frowned at this. What where they on about?

"Tell me what?" I enquired suspiciously.

Albus smirked, his mood changing suddenly. "Since this is basically your first year in Hogwarts, although you'll be in Fifth Year with us, you're going to have to ride on that today." He said, and again, pointed, this time at an enormous dark lake, where various small boats floated. I stared for a while, and then turned back to Albus.

"You have got to be joking." I deadpanned, while Albus continued to smirk, and shook his head.

He so loved to see me suffer.

I swallowed, fearfully glancing at the small boats in which First Years were already going in, I lifted my trunk (with a lot of effort), and headed towards them, with all the courage I had, (which, admittedly, isn't much).

Before I decided on whether I should make a run for it, or not, a huge hand positioned itself on my shoulder, and I turned round, only to be faced with an enormous man. Hagrid.

I had often had to sit through hours of listening to Teddy, who taught DADA, ramble on about the teachers at Hogwarts. He seemed to have a Hagrid on a pedestal, and always talked about what good guy he was.

I therefore smiled at him.

"Where yur goin' lil' lady?" He asked.

"I got transferred from Beauxbatons, so this is my first year here, and I was told I had to ride on one of these boats." As much as I don't want to, I didn't add this part though.

"Ah yeah, if you gettin' yurself Sorted, ya need to get on 'ere." And he then shoved my trunk into a boat nearly full, and helped me get on it, as he followed behind, and sat himself in front of me.

I grasped the edges of the boat tightly. The thing is, you see, I am really scared of water. Well, more like I'm really scared of drowning, something which can only happen in water, so I never go near water, unless I'm made to, like now for example.

The boat started moving forward and I was gripping so hard to it that my knuckles were going white, and splinters of the wood from the boat were sticking to my fingers painfully. I wasn't about to let go though, no frickin' way.

"Emma, Emma Jones, call me Em though." I said through gritted teeth, so much as speaking might make me suddenly splash over and end up drowning in the dark lake we were currently floating on top of. And okay, that's pretty much ridiculous, but I needed all my concentration on not falling.

Mustn't fall. Mustn't fall. Mustn't fall. Mustn't fall.

"Ahh yeah, I think I've heard that name before." Hagrid said thoughtfully, supposedly trying to remember where he'd heard my name before.

"Teddy told me!" Hagrid said, and I was so surprised I snapped my head upwards so rapidly, it dizzied me slightly.

Mustn't fall. Mustn't fa-

"AARGHH!" I yelled as I felt my body topple over the boat, and collide with the freezing cold water of the lake.

As I desperately made random movements to move upwards, (why, oh why, didn't I just take swimming lessons when I was a kid like everyone else? Oh yes, because I'm deathly afraid of water!) I had the brilliant idea of screaming again. I mean, it's what people do when they're in danger right? It was more of an automatic reaction than anything else.

And so I opened my mouth to let out a loud yell, and it instantly filled up with water, because, oh look, I'M INSIDE A FUDGING LAKE!

As the air was unfairly taken from my lungs, and replaced by water instead, I came to the realisation that I was going to die.

It came as quite an impact really. Just knowing that you only had a few minutes left until you were engulfed my the darkness, and never woke up.

It made me wonder briefly what would happen after. Was there really a heaven up there, as my parents had so desperately claimed?

By now it seemed like I'd left my body entirely, and was watching everything from above. I guess that having an outer body experience before you die, is kinda cool, as cool as dying gets anyway.

I could see my body, now sinking slowly downwards. My blonde hair had come out of its braid, and was now floating delicately around me. My eyes were closed, and my hands were raised upwards, wanting someone to pull me out.

The water was really dark, but the weird thing is that it didn't seem dirty. Most of the time, that's why the water takes a dark shade, because it was all mangy, right? Well not this lake, this was just plain dark. I couldn't see the bottom of the lake, like it just kept going and never ended. In the corner of my spiritual eye I saw movement.

Crap.

There is stuff in here.

Please let it just be fish. Please, oh please.

And as I started to turn my spirit round (could I even do that?), to see what exactly was in this lake, I was suddenly dragged inside my body again, and all the physical stuff came back. This included pain.

And suddenly I was getting pushed upwards, by the squid, it seemed. The fleeting thought of how I wasn't sliding off its tentacle, since it was so slimy, went through my mind, but I stored it away with other Useless Wonderings I Have When I'm About To Die. I am counting thirty six with this one, (those two days on the streets really gave me a whole load of time to think about different things).

And suddenly, I was out of the water!

I was propelled upwards by the giant squid, and landed with a loud thud! on the ground. Solid ground thank Merlin!

And then I started choking.

I must've coughed up at least a third of the lake, as I grasped for air, appreciating it thoroughly as it filled my lungs. My hair stuck to my neck and forehead, aswell as my clothes, which stuck to my body, making me really uncomfortable.

It's a good thing I hadn't decided to wear a white shirt. Or even worse: a white shirt with a black bra. Or in the worst-case scenario: my baby blue bra with teddy's painted on it.

Not all was good unfortunately. My black sneakers were filled with water, and when I tried to get up and walk, my feet started to feel really weird. They didn't hurt or anything, they just gave a really strange sensation, like I was walking on mushrooms.

Oh yes Hagrid, the sensation of nearly drowning and then getting a ride on a giant squid is fantastic. Really.

"I'm fine." I said, ignoring the sarcastic voice in my head. I steadied myself for a moment, and then took a step forward, and the another. Seeing I could walk without falling, I went to get my trunk, Hagrid following me closely, from behind. "Oh no, let me get that for ya." He said, hurrying towards my trunk, taking it, his eyes widening in surprise at the weight of it, but then being replaced by a cheerful smile, so very opposite to the scowl forming on my face.

"I'm cold." I stated grumpily, wrapping my arms around myself.

A light breeze had started to blow, and I was wet. I'm sure you can put two and two together.

My teeth clattered noisily, as I did nothing but shiver and watch Hagrid completely freaking out.

"Sure, I'll getcha a towel, or a blanket, maybe if yer go to the fireplace you'd heat up, you First Years, go in, Professor McGonnagal is in there, she'll getcha to the great 'all. Now Em, let's go getcha a towel." Hagrid said, directing us all inside the castle.

A/N: And tadaa! Here we have another chapter. Emma is a bit of a klutz isn't she? Poor girl, poor, poor girl... it sends some humour into the story though, at least I hope so :D Soo... tell me what ya think! Also, I'd like to give a shout out (hehe, I find writing that funny) to LivingLife/Izzie for being the first reviewer, and for angelicdemon1209, for reviewing, and for making me realise you guys may be a bit confused, about ages and all that. I'll add in a chapter that explains with a little more detail, about Teddy's 'adoption' of Em, but later on. For now just review!! :D Love you all